This is a photo from June, 1957 of my friend Rob Hyndman’s father, an RCAF pilot, who added this caption: “The day of my first solo flight in 050. I had 9 earlier great flights with my instructor one F/O Ingram, a former F-86 Sabre jock of world renown.”
The Sabre jock of world renown was my father, Donald Lew Ingram. He and Rob’s dad were both stationed at Zweibrücken, West Germany as part of 427 Squadron, which in turn was part of 3 Wing, a small group of Canadian fighter pilots whose job was to patrol the border with East Germany. In 1962, the year I was born, the base was switched over to become a forward operating base with nuclear weapons capacity, and the pilots started flying CF-104 Starfighters.
I was born while my father was in Zweibrücken, although we only lived there for a year or two after that and then moved back to Canada (Weird fact: Hockey Night in Canada host Ron MacLean was also born in Zweibrücken, I found out a little while ago). Many decades later, Rob and I met after he read the bio on my blog and noticed that we both lived in Zweibrücken when we were kids. We had coffee, and started talking about blogs and the social web — what was then called Web 2.0 — and that led to further conversations with friends, and in 2005 we started a conference in Toronto called Mesh.
The really amazing part of this story is that Rob and I had known each other for several years when he suggested that Becky and I come over for dinner, since my mother was in town and his parents were also in town. When his dad showed up, he said “Look what I found,” and showed us his flight log, where pilots keep a record of every flight they’ve taken. And on the very first page was a note about how his first training flight was with F/O Don Ingram.
I remember being totally gobsmacked at this fact, and every time I think about it or tell that story I am amazed all over again. The photo below is my father in a Sabre (his favourite plane*) at around the same time.
*Note: While we’re on the subject of flight logs, I found my dad’s flight book a few years back and looked through the meticulous entries, with a short note beside each flight with any pertinent information (“Steve flew too low. Didn’t make it” etc.) and found an entry whose note was about my brother Miles being born, which said simply “Miles born.” And then there was one beside when he first flew the F-86 Sabre that read “Swept back and supersonic at last!!!” with three exclamation marks. So you can tell what he was most excited about 🙂
The “swept back” part apparently referred to the way the Sabre’s wings sloped backwards, which was a first for fighters jets — previous models had wings that went straight out (the supersonic part is pretty obvious). From what I’ve read, the Russian MiG fighters were the fastest thing around, and the US and Canadian air forces felt outmatched by them in speed and maneuverability — until the Sabre came along. Dad flew 104s (nicknamed “The Widowmaker”) and T-33s and lots of other planes during his career, but the Sabre was his favourite. You can read more about dad here if you’re interested.